Tag: Sovereign Professional

Freelancing, Work

When YOU are the brand: Tips for sovereign professionals and micro-agencies

(I wrote this for my Burning Pine site, but then realised it belongs on here, too.)

When you’re a small business, a micro business or a freelancer, it’s different.

Whatever you do centres on you. That’s not an ego thing. It’s just that clients are buying “you” – the unique blend of experience, skills, understanding and relationship you bring.

Here are a few tips and reminders for those who find they’ve inadvertently become their own brand.

Understand your USP

It’s probably not your professional skill. If you are a designer, writer or accountant, your clients are probably not (just) buying pictures, words and numbers. You may be an average financial adviser or marketer who is exceptionally good at listening and empathising. You may be an SEO expert or trainer on the invoice, but your value is in being a sounding-board, informal coach or counsellor. It can be hard, but you need to understand what the client is buying, as well as what you’re selling. That’s not easy to put in a brochure, but it’s what drives loyalty, repeat business and referrals.

Make your client look great

That’s your job. Leave your ego at the door and make your client look great to their boss or the board. That’s what pulls you up through their organisation and across the organisations of their career path, building a network of contacts and new clients as you go.

Always be professional

Get up, get dressed, be at your desk. Even though “dressed” is seldom a suit and tie. Even though “desk” isn’t in an office with a PA. Written back when Blackberry was still a thing, there’s a lot of value in Nicholas Bate’s Professionalism 101 (here as a handy download). Nicholas is now at Hunter Gatherer 21C.

And, always be tolerant, patient and resilient

What do you think? What have I missed?

Photo by Marcus Neto on Unsplash

Work

What’s on your slate?

There’s so much wisdom in Steven Pressfield’s posts, but this particularly resonated, “You have to have a slate.”

I was doing a free rewrite on the lot at MGM when a producer friend spotted me on the bungalow’s porch and plopped down in the chair beside me. She asked me what I was working on beside this freebie. 

I hesitated.

Don’t hesitate…

“you have to be able to rattle off four, five, six projects—and be able to pitch ‘em all with full professionalism.”

Read the full post, and more, here.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

Echoes through time

Echoes through time: the sweat of your brow

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.

Genesis 3:19, King James Bible

I’m not prone to quoting the bible, but isn’t this exactly the life of a sovereign professional? No-one’s saying sweat needs to be a bad thing, it’s the consequence of hard work. In other versions, the passage becomes, “By the sweat of your brow…” and, interestingly, it has given rise to the “sweat of the brow” copyright doctrine by which a creator gains rights “through simple diligence during the creation of a work.”

Photo by Hans Reniers on Unsplash

Work

The Stoic and the sale – Kasey Pierce

This is good. Stoicism and salesmanship, especially as it relates to creatives and reluctant sellers.

Being published in indie publishing is a lot like starting in acting, none of us are experts, everyone is trying to get noticed, and it’s not at all glamorous. Although it is an honor and privilege to be published, to get your book in the hands of the people, to find your readers, takes some elbow grease. This means…you become a salesperson.

Photo by Ethan Hu on Unsplash

Tools
Tools & kit

New tools for timesheets and blogs – @TimeCamp and @NewsBlur

I have new tools to play with.

Timesheets

I’m a writer and I work, almost exclusively, on a value basis: we agree a price and I deliver.

Charging by the hour/day or, worse, per word is a killer for both quality and trust.

However, I’ve always kept timesheets for my own analysis, so that I can see how much those value-based projects actually cost me in bloody, sweaty, teary hours. They used to be simple Excel spreadsheets, one for every project, so I could work out the actual cost per hour arising from either my poor estimating or delightful rat-holing. But, I always knew that created hidden gaps.

Continue reading “New tools for timesheets and blogs – @TimeCamp and @NewsBlur” →
Echoes through time

Echoes through time: the lure of popularity

You cannot hope to be a scholar. But what you can do is to curb arrogance; what you can do is to rise above pleasures and pains; you can be superior to the lure of popularity; you can keep your temper with the foolish and ungrateful, yes, even care for them.

Marcus Aurelius (AD 120 – 180), Meditations (8.8)

Photo by Gary Ellis on Unsplash

Uncategorized

Too scared to sell yourself? – @SPressfield

An excellent post from author Steven Pressfield about the painful, self-marketing aspect of being a writer. It’s relevant for all independent professionals.

For the past few months I’ve been working full-time promoting my just-published novel, A Man at Arms, and I have to tell you … I am waaaay out of my comfort zone. 

But, Steven offers an alternative mindset to the usual reluctance we feel.

Here’s how I feel about it. I don’t see it as selfish (though no doubt there are self-interested elements in there.) For me, it’s about fidelity to the book and, especially, to the characters.

It’s about fidelity to the work.

If you do good work, it deserves to be shared.

Read the rest, here.

Steven, of course, wrote The War of Art, an essential guide to getting things done. I’ve just replaced my copy. He also coined the mantra,

Put your ass where your heart wants to be.

Photo by Andreas Rønningen on Unsplash